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PPRENTICESHIP SCHOOLS 


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FOR THE YOUNGr. 


BY 


JOHN A. HAYWARD, LL.B., B. C. L. 


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ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR AT LAW, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE BUFFALO 

\ HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MASTER MECHANIC AND TEACHER. 





To the Honorable ARTHUR Mac ARTHUR, LL.D. 


ONE WHO ADMIRES HIM AS A JUDGE, ESTEEMS HIM AS AN IN- 


STRUCTOR, AND REGARDS HIM AS A TRUE ADVOCATE 
OF INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION, DEDICATES AND 
INSCRIBES THE FOLLOWING ESSAY. 










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APPRENTICESHIP SCHOOLS EOR THE YOUNG. 


’Tis education forms the common mind : 

Just as the twig is bent the tree ’s inclined. 

' t g the necessity of advocating the education of our young men in 
induL. „i pursuits, I was led to devote some attention to the subject, not 
knowing at the time how deep the subject had been considered and dis- 
cussed by our most advanced educators; the following pages are the 
outcome of my examination and study. If this effort of mine will ac- 
complish the purpose I wish, I shall be more than paid, for the time 
devoted, if renewed energy is given to the onward march of popular 
education. 

This subject is of more importance to the welfare of the American people 
than any other that is engaging their attention at the present time. 

Our boys are roaming the streets in idleness, willing to work, but find 
nothing to do ; they are brought up, without any fault of theirs, in idleness. 
And it is this inability to earn a livelihood that brings them to the street, 
and from the street is but a step to the prison. This connection with 
idleness and crime, industry and virtue, is attracting general attention. In 
spite of the diffusion of knowledge, the number of juvenile criminals in- 
crease in a larger proportion than the numbers of criminal adults. Idle- 
ness is the twin-brother of ignorance. The following statistics speak for 
themselves. 

Of 400 prisoners in the Michigan State prison, 72 per cent, were addicted 
to the use of liquors ; of this number 66 per cent, had no trades. In Iowa, 
out of 489 in the State prison, 305 had no regular occupation. In Minne- 
sota, 130 out of 235 prisoners had no trade. In the State prison of 
Illinois, out of 1500 convicts, J of them were unable to follow a trade. 
Out of the West Pennsylvania prison that contained 390 convicts, 310 
never learned a trade. Charles T. Thwing, in summing up, says : “ From 
these statistics it must be inferred that the lack of a trade is the cause of 
a large proportion of the crime committed ; evil associations, the want of 
parental government, or of moral training, lead many into criminal courses, 
while idleness and the lack of trade education force a large number into 
lawlessness.” 

Mr. Buxton, in reporting under the head of industrial schools, says 
“ the the striking diminution of juvenile crime in recent years, amounting 
ai^ost to a social revolution, is due to the fact that preventive measures 
throughout the country (England) have to a great extent anticipated pun- 
ishment.” 

The want of a trade is a common cause of crime. 

“ Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” 

A man without a trade is more frequently without work. Ignorance leads 
to crime. The mass of young men in all our large cities spend their time 
in idleness, and if not already vicious in their habits are exposed to 
temptations and contract vices of the most dangerous character— danger- 


2 


ous not only to themselves, but to the welfare of society. Too old to 
attend school, but not too old to learn wickedness. The institutions 
engaged in finding homes for the young that are poor and destitute find 
these vicious ones too old even for the needs of the farmer. Prevention 
is better than cure ; it is wiser to reach the young by other mean -, not to 
reclaim them so much as to instruct them in some industrial pursuit 
Instead of being a vagrant with no visible means of support, fit subject 
for a reformatory institution, they would be a benefit to themselves and to 
the community and would become useful members of society. 

George R. Stetson, in an able article by him on. “ The Negro’s Need in 
Education,” says: “ It will not do for us to treat this subject with indifference 
and neglect, as many are inclined to do, and to allow the rising generate m’ 
of negroes to grow up indolent, improvident, uninstructed in the mechanic 
or agricultural arts, and steeped in immorality and ignorance as they are.” 

Our courts have no means of determining the relation that industry 
bears to crime. A prominent lawyer, with some experience among criminals 
in the city of Washington, said that six out of every ten of the young that 
come before the courts charged with crime are without trades. 

Education of the mind does not make the vicious less criminal, but educa- 
tion of the hand in some industrial pursuit has that tendency. By taking 
away his vicious habits it will put others in their place. All will feel its 
influence under this essential education ; mendicity in that proportion, and 
vagrancy that walks at noon-day, will disappear, and in their place we will 
see happy homes inhabited by contented people. 

There is a great deal of fault found with the so-called pauper labor of 
Europe. It is not that class of labor that affects us. It is our mechanical 
industries that are filled from abroad by skilled labor of the highest order 
that affects us. Machinery is found fault with by abridging the use of 
tools, but hand tools are still the basis of all industrial art. 

The demand for skilled labor is now supplied from the surplus of 
Europe ; it ought to be supplied by our young men from our own people. 
We have so far failed to fill the demand because of our lack of means to 
make them skilled mechanics. We have failed to provide them with facili- 
ties for learning an industry. They cannot become mechanics without the 
opportunities of learning a trade, and that they have not that opportunity 
is patent to all. 

There are three reasons why our young men have no trades : 

First. The influence of the trade unions. 

Second. The influence of the public schools. 

Third. The lack of a system of apprenticeship. 

First. 

The majority of young men are debarred from learning a trade wher- 
ever trade unions exist. The trade unions are bodies of men joined to- 
gether for mutual benefit. They are generally composed of good mechanics 
who have learned their trades under some system of apprenticeship. The 
system that existed when Blackstone wrote still exists in England, from 
which system has vanished long ago, and under some form or other it has 
a firm footing in other countries. We get most of our skilled workmen 
from foreign countries, and they pride themselves in their superior skilled 
education. This is what our native mechanics lack. Take from the trades 
this element, and the manufacturers, with all the protection the laws can give 
them, could not compete with foreign manufactures. Most of the mechan- 
ical trades are at the mercy of the trade unions ; they interfere with the 


3 


instruction of the young mechanic, combine to establish prices and prevent 
competition, restrain those who wish to learn a trade, and thus keep up the 
price of inferior workmanship and do all in their power to oppose the in- 
struction of young men in their trades. 

Let us see what mechanics say of these unions and their workings. A 
plasterer says that the Society of Journeyman Plasterers control apprentices ; 
as the young man gets some knowledge of the trade, the society takes him 
and he becomes its tool. The following is an instance of the control the 
union or society have over their apprentices : A young man was employed 
by a master plasterer as an apprentice, but he was not strong enough to do 
the hard work of handling the trowel ; the mother of the boy asked that he 
be put at lathing for another year ; this seemed to be such a reasonable re- 
quest that the boss agreed to it, in fact, he could afford to do it, and the 
boy would also receive more pay for that kind of work. This came to the 
knowledge of the society or union, they remonstrated, and the effect of the 
interference was that the young man could not go on with his trade as he, 
his boss, or his mother desired. 

A plumber, although a foreigner, said that the foreign mechanics in the 
Plumbers’ Society possess a great influence in the discussions at the society 
meetings, especially as to the employment of apprentices ; he said it was 
to the interest of the craft to keep the number as low as possible. They 
fix the wages ; whether they are skilled mechanics or not is hardly asked ; 
they must all get the same wages. 

A horse-shoer was bitter against the unions. He said they were com- 
posed of those who looked after their own interest. They govern the 
matter of apprentices. A shop can only employ one apprentice. A shop 
under the influence of the union undertook to employ two. This came to 
the knowledge of the society, and the boss had to discharge one of the 
boys. A shop with one forge is allowed one apprentice, and a shop with 
more cannot increase that number. 

The shoemakers some years ago had a society called St. Crispians, but 
it lacked numbers, and it ceased to exist. In a conversation with a boss 
shoemaker, a foreigner, the subject of apprentices came up for discussion. 
In his country there was a system of apprenticeship where the young man 
had to pay for the privilege of learning. In this country, he said, there was 
no compelling a boy to stay long enough in one shop to learn a trade, and 
there is therefore no interest to induce the master to keep him. 

The painters used to have a society, but it has not been in existence for 
some years. Yet a painter informed me that there is a limit to the number 
of apprentices. 

The Commissioner of Education, in his last annual report, says : “ So 
important do I consider the industrial part of the educational work among 
the (colored) people, especially since the tendency of some trade-unions 
to exclude (colored) citizens from industrial training and employment has 
become manifest, that I would urgently recommend all * * * to 

promote industrial training by every means as a substitute for trade- 
apprenticeship.” 

I think I have given enough to show the influences the trade unions 
have over the subject of apprenticeship. I could go through all the trades, 
and have no doubt but that all would give the same evidence. Trade 
unions have their uses. Among them may be mentioned mutual protection 
and the amelioration of their fellow- craftsmen; but where they interfere with 
the rights and the privileges of the young to choose what occupation they 
desire to follow, I say that it is against public policy to allow them to 
exert such influence, and they ought to be curtailed thus far, and the 


people allowed without interference to give their boys just such a trade 
they think they are adapted for. 


Second. 

The public schools are an obstacle to the young men learning trades 
because of their influence on the minds of the young who attend them. 

One day the Emperor of France, while still First Consul, paid a visit to 
an institution of learning, and while there he questioned some of the older 
pupils as to what they intended to do on leaving school. Not satisfied with 
their answers he remarked : “ The government pays considerable sums to 
educate these young men, and when their studies are ended none of them, 
except those who enter the army, are of any use to the country.” Salicis 
says : “These little bureaucrats, outlaws from real labor by no fault of their 
own, come naturally to the end of their school course without one fear 
before them, except that of being forced to become workmen ; with but one 
wish, that of becoming clerks.” Joshua Stark, president of the Milwaukee 
school board, says : “ Little thought has been given to the future of our 
boys who, upon leaving school, will enter industrial ranks. There is a 
one-sided training in our public schools, for exclusive attention is paid to 
the intellectual development of pupils, too little to practical morality and to 
physical training.” Monsignor Capel asks : “ How many boys trained in 
the public schools become laborers in industrial pursuits f ’ 

Some years ago Mr. Wilson, the superintendent of the public schools of 
the city of Washington, examined the male pupils of the eighth grade as 
to the occupation they would like to be engaged in for a livelihood after 
leaving school. The whole number of pupils examined was 259 ; of these 14 
would like to be architects ; 27 desired to be engineers ; 16 wished to be 
draftsmen ; 1 to be a miner ologist ; 10 preferred to be druggists ; 17 wanted to 
be farmers ; 27 wanted to be lawyers ; 31 would prefer being merchants ; 20 
would be doctors ; 3 artists ; 1 a minister ; 1 to be a President, and another to 
be a Senator ; but only 19 out of the 259 boys would care to be mechanics. 
Professor Runkle, of Boston, says : “It is a wide-felt conviction that Ameri- 
can boys are disinclined to enter upon industrial pursuits ; the education re- 
ceived in our public schools unfits them for manual labor and they are taught 
to despise it. What do we find ? The youths, after finishing their studies 
at the public schools, have lost the taste, if they ever had any, for manual 
labor, and prefer to starve on a mere pittance as clerks rather than the 
more remunerative labor of their hands. Large numbers leave our schools 
with no idea of what particular calling they wish to follow, and they, with 
their prejudices against work, seek that employment that gives the largest 
return for the least work.” What President Willits, of the Agricultural Col- 
lege of Michigan, says will apply to the shop as well as the farm : “Four years 
of study without labor, wholly removed from sympathy with the laboring 
world during the period of life when habits and tastes are rapidly formed, 
will almost inevitably produce disinclination, if not inability, to perform 
the work and duties of the farm.” We must recognize this truth : that 
however useful literary pursuits may be they are yet insufficient to meet 
the grave necessities which are to devolve upon the great majority of our 
youth. Our public schools unfit them for their proper places in the world ; 
the many are unfitted for the humble positions they must occupy. Is there 
not something wrong when such a feeling exists ? What must the schools 
do to counteract this tendency ? Is it not to teach respect to humble work 
and calling ? To teach them to beautify the humble position they must be 
called to fill by lives of contentment and industry 1 ? A modern writer 


5 


says that if the young men are encouraged they would become mechanics 
from choice. Some say the general character of the education taught in 
our public schools does not bear upon the leading pursuits of the people. 
Can this be so ? The natural sciences are taught, drawing holds a prom- 
inent part in the studies, and a general knowledge of technology is also a 
prominent feature. The boys leaving these schools are as well qualified to 
enter a shop as an office, if they were taught that the shop is as honorable 
as the office. There is dignity in labor. The Jew is taught in his Talmud 
that study and hand-work are to be familiarly associated in his mind. The 
Rabbis would carry their work-stools to their schools, and while giving 
instruction to their pupils they carried on their livelihood. Rabbi 
Phineas was working as a mason when chosen High Priest. Among the 
Jews no teacher could receive payment for his instruction. Paul, while 
ministering to his congregations, labored with his hands. Honest industry 
which gained self-support brought to their cheek no false shame. 

In more modern times, and coming nearer home, who is ashamed to 
own a printer in Franklin, a blacksmith in Elihu Burritt, a surveyor in 
Washington, a shoemaker in Wilson, a tanner in Grant, a weaver in Fox. 
Franklin and Washington, they more than any others, we acknowledge as 
the chief founders of our Government. Burritt at his forge could explain 
to a pupil an intricate sentence in a language. Wilson, Lincoln’s Vice-Presi- 
dent, could pound leather on his lapstone with the best, and was proud 
to say that if he was a shoemaker he could make a good shoe. W. J. Fox’s 
knowledge of weaving did not prevent him from being, both in and out of 
Parliament, an advocate of the dignity of labor. 

There is a powerful influence exerting itself against the foundation of 
our public schools. If they need reformation, let us not reform them out- 
side by sapping their foundation. In our system we have in the past left 
out of sight the education of the hand. Dr. White says : “ The public 
school should be prevaded by a more earnest industrial spirit, and it 
should do more to cultivate a taste for industrial pursuits and a respect 
for honest labor.” The Government has granted lands for the indus- 
trial education of young men, but it has come in contact with the pro- 
fessions, and nothing but the highest mechanical education can com- 
pete with them. We do not want a smattering of the workshop. We 
want, and the country needs, less smattering of the college and more indus- 
trial education. Primary knowledge, allied with a complete knowledge of 
some industrial pursuit, is an element that will not be overlooked. The 
first thing to be done to counteract this prejudice against labor is for the 
teachers of our public schools to inculcate this principle, not to-day, nor 
to-morrow only, but now and always, line upon line, precept upon precept, 
a word here, another there. Parents should assist the teacher, and all keep 
in mind that — 

“ Honor and fame from no condition rise, 

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.” 

Third. 

The disappearance of the old system of apprenticeship, caused by its 
degeneracy and the multiplication of artistic manufacturers, is another 
reason why our young men cannot learn trades. 

We have no system of apprenticeship ; our laws on this subject are 
obsolete. 

Hans Christian Anderson describes the apprentice of his time. When 
he had served his time and passed his examination he packed his knapsack 
and sang the journeyman’s song : 


6 


“ While I am young I’ll wander, from place to place I’ll roam, 

And everywhere build houses, until I come back home ; 

And youth will give me courage, and my true love won’t forget ; 

Hurrah, then, for a workman’s life ! I’ll be a master yet ! ” 

In former times it was necessary to bind by certain indentures a young 
man to learn a trade. There were obligations on both sides ; one to serve 
the master, the other to instruct the apprentice. The old trade societies 
or guilds kept their eyes on the apprentices, and took care that a mechanic 
who wished an apprentice was qualified to keep and teach him. Now, a 
young man is fortunate in getting into a shop to learn a trade ; he can no 
longer compel his master to teach him. At first he is put to the most 
menial work, and gets little pay. It is expected that he is to pick up his 
trade or learn it from the journeymen. It is not the interest of the latter 
to teach the young apprentice ; they must confine as much as possible the 
knowledge of their craft to the few. Again, if the youth wishes to become 
master of his trade, and the employer agrees to instruct him thoroughly, 
both are governed by opposite desires. The one wants more wages, and 
this want is often coupled with the expectancy of the parent of an increase 
in his son’s wages. The other wants to get out of the boy all he can The 
master is tempted to keep his apprentice at work an undue length of time 
in the department of the trade he has first learned well and in which his 
labor is most profitable. If this is true, who is to give the youth the 
instruction he desires ? It may be done in a small shop where the master 
is also the journeyman, but where there are many workmen in a shop, 
working by the piece, they have no time to instruct the apprentice. 

The effect of this piece work is the multiplication of the parts of a trade. 
Few so-called mechanics are masters of their trade. For instance, a plumber 
wants a journeyman ; one comes along and says he is a plumber. The boss 
soon finds out what he can do ; he can cut pipes and fit them together, 
while to rub a joint in a lead pipe he knows nothing about ; but he wants 
the wages the union say he is entitled to, but he is no plumber. The large 
factories injure the trades. Take the shoe trade. If a shoemaker who 
knows all the branches of the trade wishes work in a shoe factory, he is 
better qualified to follow any part of the work making a shoe, and more 
likely to get employment and can demand better wages than one who 
understands only a part of the trade. In conversation with a satchel and 
bag maker, who learned the whole of the trade in England, he said he 
found no difficulty in getting work ; when there is a scarcity of hands for 
a particular part of the business he could turn in and do it, and can always 
demand more wages than he who only learned a part. In the factories the 
young are only taught a branch of the trade and he becomes proficient in 
his part ; he finds when the factory closes he has no trade. There is more 
frequently an excess of workmen in a subdivision of a trade or industry 
than an excess in the industry as a whole. In conversation with a painter 
he said that a journeyman used to be, in his young days, master of his 
trade and knew everything in connection with his craft, mix paints, 
decoration, sign-painting and a glazier. Now any one who can handle a 
white- wash brush calls himself a painter. A skilled painter with a thorough 
knowledge of his trade need never be without work, and that at good 
wages. A tinner was reviewed. It used to be, when he learned his trade, 
that a skilled mechanic was a coppersmith, a plumber, as well as a tin- 
smith. He told of the happy times the young men used to have after 
serving their apprenticeship honorably and faithfully and had attained 
their majority. The best suit of clothes was not too good for them ; the 
time was kept as one of enjoyment and hilarity with all the apprentices in 


7 


the shop. All his past efforts to surmount the difficulties of his handi- 
craft were forgotten and he stood enrolled among the membership of an 
honorable craft. Now all is changed. The present generation of young 
men have very little knowledge of the trade they profess to follow. In 
conversation with a shoemaker he expressed his opinion that the more boys 
there are put together learning a trade the better mechanics would be 
turned out. In this plan there is an inducement to self-improvement, a 
feeling of generous rivalry among them as to who will turn out the best 
work. A class organized for the purpose of learning a trade would be of 
benefit to the members of the trade. 


The question is worthy of our attention, How shall the American youth 
obtain the knowledge of a trade, and not turn out, as is done now, hundreds 
of half-taught, unskilled workmen ? 

The Governor of Missouri, on the system of apprenticeship, says in his 
message : “ The old system of apprenticeship is about at an end, and it is 
necessary, if we propose to protect the interests of our industries and con- 
sult the welfare of our youth, to devise some means for their proper training. 
In our ordinary and more advanced schools the only vocation aimed at, and 
in which positive interest is aroused, are commerce, buying and selling, 
banking, accounts, keeping books, and in the so-called learned professions. 
The ordinary school-boy gets the idea that it requires no education to be 
a mechanic ; hence he aspires to what is called a higher profession, a higher 
vocation, and foolishly learns from vicious sources to despise both craft 
and craftsmen. This pernicious tendency can be corrected and the dignity 
of skilled labor and skilled workmen be maintained by the introduction of 
manual training in trade schools.” 

The old system of apprenticeship having departed, never to return, some- 
thing else must take its place in this country. This has been done by 
special trade schools on the continent of Europe. Professor Runkle says 
that “ skilled labor must be provided for in the future in special mechanical 
trade schools.” 

The education of the people demands the education of the young in 
mechanical pursuits. MacDonald says he would rather a boy of his 
choose a trade than a clerkship, and, as I said before, if the boys had a 
choice they would so choose. Me said it was easier to do honest work 
than to buy and sell honestly. Mr. Savage, of Boston, says that “ one of 
the fundamental ideas of education ought to be, training the boys to earn 
their own living.” 

It is not the pauper labor of foreign countries that we ought to fear, it 
is their skilled labor. It is against the foreign mechanic that we must 
protect ourselves. How can we better do so than by qualifying our own 
youth to take their places ? 

Skilled labor all over the United States commands the highest wages. 
The demand far exceeds the supply. In the large cities this demand is 
supplied chiefly from abroad, owing to the difficulty young men in the 
large cities experience in finding an opportunity to learn a trade. 

We hear labor crying down machinery. It is not skilled labor that is 
displaced by machinery. It is the rude, uneducated labor. There is a 
limit to the demand for rude labor and rude products that only require 
rude labor and workmanship. The demand is for superior products that 
find employment for skilled workmen. It is this skilled labor performed 
by the educated young men of this country that will give us industrial 
supremacy. The apprentice system gave skilled mechanics to England 


8 


and her splendid manufacturing prosperity is the result. Such men are 
the hope of the country, and must take their places in the near future ; and 
it is our duty to qualify them to fill the places now occupied by aliens. 
This class of skilled workmen is the sure foundation for prosperous manu- 
factures. They must increase, and their proper education is of more 
consequence each decade or each year. The young man with a trade is 
better fitted for the battle of life than he who has none. This country is 
destined to become a vast workshop, and to it the best energies of the 
American people are eventually to be exerted. The power of a people who 
duly mixes manufactures with agriculture is tenfold more than that of a 
purely agricultural people. And the people are the laborers, whether 
unskilled, skilled, or educated, who year by year earn the entire income 
of the nation. 

Franklin, in 1771, said: “Every mechanic encouraged makes a part of 
a market within ourselves.” Hamilton, in 1791, said : “ When all the 
different kinds of industry are obtained in a community, each individual 
can find his proper element and can call into activity the whole vigor 
of his character. The spirit of enterprise, useful and prolific as it is, must 
be contracted or expanded in proportion to the simplicity or variety of the 
occupations and productions which are found in a society. It must be 
less in a nation of mere cultivators than in a nation of cultivators and 
merchants ; less in a nation of cultivators and merchants than in a nation 
of cultivators, artificers, and merchants.” He thus gives as much impor- 
tance to artificers as to either of the other two. Jackson says : “ Draw 
from agriculture 600,000 men, women, and children, employ them in the 
mechanical industries and manufactures, and you create a market for your 
farm produce and distribute labor. The farmer is less prosperous where 
agriculture most predominates, and thrives the best where the mechanical 
industries are most developed.” Let us take a financial view of it. The 
cost of producing a skilled workman is less than one year’s purchase of 
his increased value to the nation. What is the moneyed value of a well- 
trained skilled workman as compared to a strong able-bodied man who 
understands no craft, handiwork, or art, is told by their value in the labor 
market. Look at to-day : a common laborer with a pick and shovel is worth 
from $1.00 to $1.25 a day ; if he is skilled, as the plumbers’ laborers 
who use those tools are, he can command $1.75 or $2.00 a day. A laborer 
earns, as above, $1.25 a day, but put a hod on his back and he wants $2.50, 
because he says he is a skilled laborer. The latter earns two times as much 
as the former : put a trowel in his hand, with a superior industrial educa- 
tion, he earns four times as much as the laborer ; in other words, the edu- 
cated mechanic is worth, on an average, $1,000 a year, the income of 
$25,000 in 4-per-cent, bonds ; or, if he makes 300 days in the year, he gets 
an income on $33,750 in 4-per-cent, securities. 

The young man with a trade is thus better equipped for the battle of 
life than the young man with a learned profession. 

Mr. Wickersham says : “ It is high time that something should be done 
to enable our youth to learn trades and to form industrious habits and 
a taste for work.” 

The question is, how shall our youth acquire an industrial education ? 

A young man who wants to be either a lawyer, a doctor, a minister, a pro- 
fessor, or an artist, must enter the office or studio of the profession, or enter 
a law school, medical college, or some branch of a university. If he wants 
to be a mechanic, he has but one choice — to enter a shop ; he has no schools 
or colleges where he can learn the trade he desires, as the would-be lawyer, 
doctor, &c., have. The mechanic, if he is a thinking man, wants, and ever 


9 


desires, a system of trade-schools for the benefit of the class to which he 
belongs, as the learned professions have. 

We all learn by imparting our knowledge to others ; so the educated 
mechanic will learn while imparting his knowledge in the schools of his 
craft. The schools of the professions had obstacles to contend with, but 
these have been surmounted. A lawyer o uld not practise unless he had 
undergone the labors and drudgery of office work. There was no union 
to prevent him from entering an office or to prevent the lawyer from taking 
as many clerks as he wanted. These trade schools will meet these obstacles, 
and, in spite of them, training will be in the near future as possible in the 
industrial and mechanical trades as it is now in the professions. 

The first school of trades was established in Russia. Rotterdam has 
had an artisan school in operation fourteen years. Paris has had an ap- 
prentice school since 1873. Hungary has an art industrial school, although 
of recent origin. In this country these schools are in their infancy. 

New York city has a trade school, established by Mr. R. T. Auchmuty, 
where are taught what are called the building trades. St. Louis has a 
trade school as a part of Washington University. It is one of seven 
departments. 

In the winter of 1872 the Senate asked for information in relation to 
technical or industrial education in the schools and colleges endowed in 
whole or in part by the Government of the United States. From the 
report in answer to the inquiry I find there are 21 State colleges or uni- 
versities, most of them devoted more or less to agriculture and mechanical 
arts, a small proportion devote some time to practical instruction in work- 
shop, but their object is to give a general education, not a special calling. 
They are in the right direction, as the president of Purdue University, 
Indiana, says : “ Their success requires that the dominant, controlling 
influence of these institutions must be scientific and industrial, not classi- 
cal. No industrial school can prosper if its influence is sapped by the 
classical system.” 

As to industrial or manual training, its true purpose is not, as many 
suppose, to perfect the pupil in any particular trade, but to train the hand 
and the eye to the use of tools, to form correct habits of observation and 
industry, so that at the end of his short school life he will not be indus- 
trially so helpless as he now is. 

The interest in which the subject of manual training in the public schools 
is felt in this country is very considerable. There is scarcely a school 
board from Maine to California that is not discussing the subject. Those 
who are advocating the education of the young in industrial pursuits are 
divided in their plans. Professor Runkle says : “ Separate the art from the 
trade, the instruction shop or laboratory from the construction shops, to 
teach each trade in its own shop, to equip each with tools, and accommo- 
date as many pupils or apprentices as the teacher can instruct at the same 
time, and to graduate the series of samples to be worked out in each shop 
on educational grounds, and lastly, to adopt the tests for proficiency and 
progress.” This idea has been carried out in St. Louis and Chicago, where 
special schools are conducted. The other plan is to give to the public 
schools industrial education, or what is called manual training, and let it 
be a part of their system ; thus educate the hand as well as the mind. 

The Architect, of March, 1885, has the following from an art master : 
“With all respect for the inquiry now going on, and the opinions of so 
many eminent men upon the subject of ‘Technical Education,’ I cannot 
see how any system of ‘ school education ’ can supply the place of the ap- 
prenticeship in the workshop, or supersede the responsibility of the master 


10 


manufacturers of teaching lads their trades ; but the State does supply the 
practical and intellectual training of a high character to qualify them for 
a more ready understanding of their business.” 

The duty of the nation is to fit its children so that they can occupy the 
position of citizens. Their education must commence at childhood, in the 
Kindergarten, carry on the same system, educate the mind as well as the 
hand. Not turn out boys fit only for the professions, but boys who by 
their education in the public schools are fit to enter a law school, or any 
other professional school, and a trade school or technical institute.” 

Professor Adler says : “ They (the teachers) declare with some vehemence, 
and I firmly believe with entire justice, that the State violates the rights of 
children when it undertakes to prescribe their future career during the 
school age, and that the public system of education should be kept free 
from any subserviency to the bread-and butter interests of later life.” He 
says that his method of education, the creative method (which is following 
out the Kindergarten system), “will open a new avenue for exploring the 
individuality of the pupil. It will offer a new opportunity for the nature 
of the pupil to declare itself and to reveal its bias ; ” that “ the progress of 
modern education is in the direction of greater individuality.” 

To-day a student may, with no fixed destiny, learn that which is general 
or gymnastic, and to-morrow, with a fixed destiny, may do and learn the 
very same thing with an aim and purpose purely technical or special. Thus 
his studies become technical or gymnastic, according to the degree of 
their practical application. What the youth wants is what is called a 
technical education, whether a profession, art, or trade. Technical educa- 
tion is that training which renders the talents of the educated youth use- 
ful to that profession, art, trade, or mechanical occupation in which the 
member of that profession or occupation is destined to pass his life, 
whereby the individual shall, in his special calling, know more thoroughly 
its. fundamental principles and achieve more quickly, perfectly, and 
economically the aims of his life. In the modern life of the civilized world 
each man’s sphere is becoming narrower, his work harder and more 
technical. 

We need a school for the education and training of the young men to 
be master mechanics — to be professors to teach the special trades. The 
lack of competent instructors is the most serious difficulty which manual 
training in our schools will encounter. The school will also be a normal 
school from which instructors will proceed to fill this growing want. The 
training they will receive in such a school will produce a much higher 
average of culture than the universities. The graduates from such an 
institute will improve the young men that are to be our future mechanics. 
Until we have these master-mechanics or teachers to improve them we 
cannot expect any advance among our present mechanics. Our present 
system may be compared to the parable of the blind leading the blind. 
The ignorant cannot teach the ignorant. We need the best teachers the 
country can produce. When we have them our mechanics will compete 
with the manufacturers of the world. The trade unions will no longer pre- 
vent the young from learning a trade, but will feel more interest in the 
perfection of the members of their crafts. Why should the capital of the 
nation be behindhand in such an enterprise ? Its relation to the Union 
makes it essentially the point where a movement of this character may be 
carried on and its bearing upon society thoroughly tested. It has been a 
success elsewhere and it will be a success here. Examine the St. Louis 
school as a model. Can we not make such a school one of the departments 
of our universities ? None of them have such a school. Such a school to 


11 


have for its objects the teaching of trades and to supply the wants of an 
actual apprenticeship. 

It has taken a hundred years to enable us to set about the work in 
earnest of making the United States the one people’s republic, claiming the 
reverence of all people. And the one question of American home policy 
which is now coming to the front is the training of American children and 
youth for the American citizenship of the coming century. Here we will 
find the hope of Washington. A national university — one having for its 
foundation the American people’s common schools ; and an industrial 
college, combining all that is good from present and past experience, that 
will possess the means of giving the young a special training that will fit 
them to occupy with credit the positions they wish to fill in life and that will 
adorn the calling of the American citizen. 

What relation will this system of apprenticeship schools bear upon our 
present educational system ? Let us see : 

First. Take the child before it is qualified as to age to enter the schools 
as now organized, and develop its latent faculties in the -Kindergarten. 
Here the senses are each developed, and the hand and heart receive their 
due attention. 

Second. When he arrives at the age of six continue the system of the Kin- 
dergarten until he arrives at the period when the so-called manual training 
may be commenced, and carry it on until he has arrived at the age of sixteen. 

Third. Organize by private enterprise apprenticeship schools, to be called 
mechanics’ institutes, in which are to be taught together certain elementary 
trades which bear affinity for each other, to be followed in a prescribed plan 
by special instruction in a special trade. 

Fourth. Organize a technical school or normal institute in connection 
with the mechanics’ institutes, to train teachers to be instructors of manual 
training in the public schools. 

Fifth. Organize a college or school, to be a part of a university, for young 
men who have passed an examination in a mechanics’ institute, or who are 
master mechanics, to fit them to be foremen of factories and to be professors 
of trades in the apprenticeship schools or mechanics’ institutes. 

JOHN A. HAYWARD. 




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